Skicircus 10.-17.02.2007

Hinterglemm

This year we went to Austria to snowboard. Our company consisted of 5 snowboarders and 30 something skiers. My uncle arranges ski trips every year. Mostly in Austria. Last year we went to Cervinia, Italy. Me and my 3 friends (Mariel, Annika, Marko) were living together in an appartment in Hinterglemm.

1.day

Our plane left from Tallinn Ülemiste Airport at 11.30 am. First we went to Copenhagen, Denmark and from there to München, Germany. From München we went to Hinterglemm by bus. We got there quite late, at about 10 pm. Of course there always has to be a problem. Our bus dropped us off in front of an appartment building. We couldn't get in. We looked for the landlord from everywhere. We asked some people, if they could help us, but noone was local. So I called my uncle, who arranged our stay in Austria. He came there and we finally got into our place. We were outside wandering for an hour or so. But no harm done. We went inside. It was quite a normal rental appartment. 2 rooms, a kitchen, a bathroom, a small hallway and a balcony, which was quite big. The appartment was a lot bigger than the one we had in Italy in 2006.
Even though we were tired, me and Annika went out to explore the small town called Hinterglemm. Mariel and Marko decided to stay home, because they weren't in the exploring mood:) We walked to the centre, which was about 7 minutes walk. The first thing we noticed while we were on the bus, was a small bar called 2€ bar.

It sounded promising, so we went there:D The place didn't disappoint us. It was sort of a mix of two bars in Tallinn: Levist Väljas and Rockstar's. Comfy place. I felt like at home. The bartender was cool. Anyways, we liked the place. After a couple of beers, that costed 2€ each, we started walking back home. On our way we saw another bar, which seemed cool. It was called Road King. It was a Harley-Davidson pub. No wonder we liked it. The interior design was really cool. We had some beers there also:) They were a bit more expensive there. I think 3.30€ a beer. The bartender there was also really cool. Leather pants and everything. Everyone were friendly. After those beers we went home.

2.-7.day

We spent the days snowboarding and partying. Had a lots of fun. Austria is probably the best skiing/snowboarding destination in Europe. The prices are reasonable, there's always good snow (has been until now at least), and the after-ski's are great. Comparing for example to Slovakia, where the partying is OK and the prices are quite cheap, but there have been problems with the lack of snow. Or Italy, Switzerland and France, where there's plenty of snow, but the prices are high and the after-ski culture is almost non-excistent.

Saalbach Hinterglemm was an OK resort, but I still find Ischgl in Austria to be the best resort I've been to. So far at least.

2.2.2007

Helsinki, Finland

The first trip of the year. It was just for a day, but we still had fun. The four of us went to Helsinki to do some shopping. I needed new snowboarding clothes. Annika wanted to buy a corset. Agne and Triin just wanted buy something:)

Shopping tips:

- Skate shops:

Union Five
Erottajankatu 15-17 (Mon-Fri 10-20, Sat 10-17)
&
Kamppi shopping center 5th floor (Mon-Fri 10-20, Sat 9-18)

Ponke's the Shop
Simonkatu 6 (Mon-Fri 10-19, Sat 10-16)

Beam Hill
Yliopistonkatu 7
&
Mikonkatu 8 Aikatalo

MicMac
FORUM BOYS & FORUM GIRLS
Forum Shopping Center
Mannerheimintie 20

- Gothic shops

Morticia
Kamppi shopping center 5th floor

- Bars

Chaplin (good music. Probably the best bar in Helsinki.)
Mannerheimintie 6

Kettunen
Kluuvi shopping center
Aleksanterinkatu 9

I bought my clothes from Ponke's. I was a bit surprised that there wasn't a bigger choice of clothes than in Estonia. Finland is quite known in the world for its snowboard scene. Where do people buy their clothes from? It was weird.

All in all, we were really tired when we got back to Tallinn, but we still went to Levist Väljas. It's like a tradition already. To go there after trips.

RIGA, LATVIA 4.12.-6.12.2006

In December I went to Riga with Triin to see Iggy Pop & The Stooges concert. At first we didn't believe that he is actually coming to Riga, which is quite close to Tallinn. Like Iggy Pop!

We went there by bus. It was too dark and cold to hitch-hike. Unfortunately.

Monday

We got to Riga at 10 pm. We had accomodation through CS (www.couchsurfing.com). Our hosts, Maija and Richards came to pick us up at the bus station. They had a really cool kind of a underground appartment on Tallinas iela. We felt like at home. The appartment was quite big. And they had two the most adorable cats in the world. And I usually don't like cats that much. Lucky and Kitty.

We talked to Maija and Richards for a while and then went to the Old Town. We were really hungry. Since it was quite late, it seemed that there was no place we could get some food. Except for McDonald's. And we didn't want to go there. Eventually we found a place called Stella pub near the Dome Square (Doma laukums, Šķūņu iela 19, www.stellapub.lv).

They are open until 3 am. And they serve food after midnight! We had something to eat and drank couple of beers. There were some guys playing drums and some girls playing with fire chains. It was cool.

After this we went looking for a place called Belle Epoque (Beautiful Era, Maza Jaunavu iela 8). I had been there couple of years ago and I knew that they had cheap beer. It is a quite difficult place to find, because it is situated on a really small street. So we decided to follow the screams of drunk people. And there it was!:) We were outside smoking and some guys came to talk to us. The dialog was something like that: "blablabla" (Latvian) - "Huh?" - "Where are you from?" - "Estonia" - "Huh?" - "Igaunija" (Estonia in Latvian) - "(something like) fuck off". They went away, came back and asked whether we would like to have sex with them. We refused.

We went downstairs. It was exactly as I remembered. Everyone was wasted. Especially the bartender. He was so wasted that he sold us two beers for the price of one. Which was 1.40 EUR for 2 0.5 L beers:D We had couple of beers there. Some guys tried to talk to us, but we didn't understand a word what they were saying. Then we went back home.

Tuesday

We woke up and had some noodles. Then we went looking for shoes for Triin. Maija came with us at first. We went to every skateshop in Riga. She didn't find anything. Then we went to the Old Town. Did some sightseeing. But not a lot, since we have been to Riga before. Main places we saw were Sv. Pētera baznīca (St. Peter's Cathedral), Rīgas doms (Riga dome) and probably some more places. I just know the names of the places. We just walked around and then went home to prepare ourselves for the concert.

We talked to our hosts, played with the cats (which was the main entertainment) and drank beer. It was really cool that our hosts came to the concert too. They were as excited as we were. When we got to Arena Riga, the first two guys we saw were Estonians. There were a lot of Estonians there. We drank some more and waited for Iggy to show up. And then he came. I was surprised that everybody was so calm. Some people screamed, but I didn't get the feeling of a punk concert. Iggy was really good though. They didn't play my favourite songs, but it was ok. The main hit was "I Wanna Be Your Dog". They played it twice! It was basically the only time people were actually jumping and singing along. It felt so good to finally see Iggy Pop.

After the concert we went to a shop and bought something to eat. Then we went back home, smoked shisha (waterpipe), drank whiskey and chatted. It was cool. Since Richards is a devoted snowboarder, we talked about extreme-sports and watched a snowboarding video. And then went to sleep.

Wednesday

In the morning we got up, ate some noodles and packed our bags. And again went looking for shoes. There were plenty of shoes, but all of them were made of suede. It seemed quite pointless to buy suede shoes in December. So she didn't find anything. We met Maija and gave her the keys and said bye to our host. Then walked to the Old Town again.

We went to Jack Daniels pub (Kalku12/14) to eat and drink some beer. I think we tried all the main Latvian beers. And this place had really good pasta.

After that we walked some more. We found some places like Laipa Suveniri, which in Estonian means "souvenirs of the corpses" (we bought our souvenirs from there), then the Galerija "Lita" (also on the "corpses" street), which means "the bitches gallery" and so on.

Every Estonian knows there's a somewhat famous café called Perse. In Estonian perse means "ass". We didn't go there, unfortunately.

Then we went to the bus station. Since we had some time, we went to the nearby market. This was sort of a unique experience. In terms of really bad smell.

When we got on the bus, we instantly could tell who was Estonian. The first thing all the Estonians did, when they sat down, was taking out there laptops. Everyone except for us (we just left them home:)).

We arrived to Tallinn about 10 pm. I think we went home.

Conclusion

Our hosts were great. I love CS and HC. We asked them to come to Tallinn in the beginning of January, when there was an extreme- sports festival called Simpel Session. They came and had fun. Maija and Richards are the coolest Latvians I have ever met. If I will go to Riga again, I'll probably stay at their place.

Latvian beer ad: Bauskas and Aldaris. At least I liked those. I think Triin wasn't a big fan of Bauskas.

Skateshops: The main skatshop is called Boards.lv (www.boards.lv).

Addresses are: Bruņinieku iela 29/31, Mazā Monētu iela 4 (Old Town)

The Great Adventures of Helen & Lynn. Vol. 2.

EUROTRIP August 2006.

Me and my formal classmate, Eva decided to go hitch-hiking in August. We wanted to go to Portugal. Unfortunately she couldn't come, so I asked Lynn to join me. Since we could be on the road only for two weeks, we planned our furthermost destination to be Paris, France. It was the first hitch-hiking experience outside of Estonia for both of us.

Monday, 21.08.2006
Tallinn, EE - Kaunas, LT (573.6 km)

We took off at 9 am from Tallinn, Estonia. We waited the first car for about 10 minutes. He took us forward for 30 km or so. Then a Polish truck driver took us nearby the Estonian - Latvian border. From there, an Estonian truck driver took us to Adaži, which is about 23 km from Riga, the capital of Latvia. We had lunch in a local gas station. Then we continued the trip to Kaunas. An older Latvian guy took us around Riga, so we would definitely get to the right highway. From there another guy took us near Bauska, which is quite close to the Latvian - Lithuanian border. From there an Estonian truck driver called TRUMM took us straight to Kaunas, Lithuania. Lynn didn't like him, because he had a lot of porn pictures in his truck:D But I thought he was ok. He asked whether we had a place to stay in Kaunas and suggested that we could sleep in his truck if we wanted to. But we already had booked a room in hotel Metropolis (http://www.lithuanianhotels.com/hotels/Metropolis). And he was a bit creepy. So we took our bags and started to look for the hotel. It wasn't very far. We were surprised to see that the hotel was in the centre of Kaunas, because it was very cheap (100 LTL or 450 EEK or 29 EUR / per room including breakfast). We took a shower, changed our clothes and went to eat at a pizza place, which was in the same building. Since we had had quite a long day, we went to sleep after dinner to be prepared for the next day.

Tuesday, 22.08.2006 & Wednesday, 23.08.2006

Kaunas, LT - Berlin, D (976.9 km)

We woke up at 7 am. Our breakfast was in another hotel called Takioji Neris. The breakfast was huge. I've never seen so much food in a 2 star hotel. Seriously. After breakfast we headed out to the highway. It took 2 minutes and we were on our way to Marijampole (55 km from Kaunas). Near Marijampole 3 Polish guys took us on. It turned out that they are from Gdansk, Poland, but they work in Tallinn. It was really difficult to communicate to Polish people, because they speak only Polish. We tried to speak English and Russian with them, but very few people understood us. Eventually, after two weeks, we already started to understand Polish:) These guys were very friendly and at least they tried to speak in Russian to us. Lynn is better in Russian than me, so she talked to them most of the time. They took us across the border to Poland. From there, we both bought the map of Europe. Just in case:D I don't know why, but neither of us thought of bringing a map on the trip. We had signs with our destinations, but no map. From the border a truck took us to Suwalki.

We told him that we need to get to Berlin by that evening and he started laughing. Most of the trucks go through Warszawa and there are huge traffic jams there. So, basically he told us that we would be lucky if we got through Warszawa by the end of the day. We didn't quite panic, but we did get a bit worried. Since we needed to stay on the right highway, our truck driver called some other drivers with his walkie-talkie and we got another ride starting from Suwalki. This guy took us really far. All the way to Konin, which is approx. 470 km! We took turns on sleeping. Since there is a law that only two people can be in the truck (because of the seat belts), one of us had to sit on the bunk bed and every time the driver noticed a police car, we had to pull on the curtains. When we got near Konin it was already quite dark outside. Luckily, one Polish guy stopped and took us 40 km from the German border. It was really dark by the time we got there. Since it was a gas station and a guesthouse, there were a lot of trucks. The shitty thing was that most of the truck drivers were sleeping. I don't know for how long we tried to get on a truck there, but it must've been 30-45 minutes.

Finally we just went on a truck and said that we need to get to Germany and we don't care what the driver thinks:) And it worked. The driver was again very friendly. Only problem we had now, was that Lynn had to take off her contact lenses, so she needed to wash her hands. We tried to explain that to the driver. At last he understood and took a bowl out of nowhere and some soap and water also. It was really funny. He had a "why-didn't-you-say-you-needed-those-things-at-the-first-place" look on his face. There was a long queue on the Polish - German border. Just a couple of kilometres before the border, I had to go to another truck just behind ours. And some kilometres after the border I was reunited with Lynn:D We fell asleep. At about 4 am we arrived near Berlin, Germany to a place called Altlandsburg. Actually it was some km-s away from this town, at a gas station. We asked the gas station ladies directions to Berlin. They told us to go to Altlandsburg and get on a bus to Berlin from there. So we walked and walked. We couldn't find the place. We even thought of sleeping on a field, but we kept on going. We finally found the town and the bus-stop. When we got on the bus, it felt like we hadn't been among people for ages:) When we got out of the bus, we had to go on S-Bahn. We bought a one day ticket (Tageskarte), which costed about 6 EUR. I think we arrived in Berlin at 9 am. We were staying at my father's friends place. His name is Hans. His main sentence in English was "no problem". He had a huge 3-room appartment in the centre of Berlin. First of all, we took a shower and then we got some hours of sleep.

After sleeping, we went to discover Berlin. Of course we went to see the gate of Brandenburg. We mainly just walked in the centre. I don't think we did much of sightseeing except for the gate, the main street called Unter den Linden, Alexanderplatz and probably a few other places. After another long day we went to a nice quiet pub, where Lynn had a cider and I had some of Germany's famous beer. Then we went back to Hans's place. He owns an Italian restaurant called Chiaia (Eisenacher Str. 38, Berlin 10781). We just went to get the keys to the appartment, but he insisted we'd get something to eat. We didn't argue, because we were hungry. There are so good dishes in that restaurant. And everyone is so nice. After eating we went to sleep.

Thursday, 24.08.2006
Berlin, D - Meerbusch, D (590 km)

In the morning, we had a small breakfast and Hans took us on the highway. It took us a while to get on a truck, approx. 40 minutes. But when we got on a car, we got pretty close to our final destination of that day, which was Meerbusch. This car took us near Krefeld. It was the fastest drive ever. We went with 240 km/h at some times! It was like flying. From there a truck took us to Geismühle gas station. I had talked to one guy, Jan from HospitalityClub about staying at his place for one night. He met us at this gas station and we went to his place. He lived with his parents in this small town Meerbusch.

We stayed in the basement. It was really cool to stay in a small town and get to know the local people. We settled in and then went for a walk. We met one of Jan's friends, I hope his name was Tim (sorry, it's been a while) and went walking around this town. They took us by the river Rhine. It was really cool. Then we went back to Jan's place to drink some more of German beer. We stayed up for quite a long time just drinking and talking. Those guys are awesome. I'm going to advertise their band also: it's called Sick'n'Satisfied. I tried to find their web page also, but for some reason I couldn't..

Friday, 25.08.2006
Meerbusch, D - Luxembourg, L - Paris, F (~710 km)

Jan's father took us to the highway near Cologne (Köln). From there a guy took us to Echternach. He was most likely Turkish and all the way there he told us about his kebab place and that we should come and try his kebabs. We had to politely say no, since neither of us likes meat very much. Echternach was a really small place and we thought we'd never get out of there. Plus it was raining. But as soon as I got my thumb up, a sportscar stopped. The driver was a really shy young guy. But he was really friendly. We said we wanted to go to Luxembourg. I didn't specify that I meant the capital:) He just went to Luxembourg (the country) to get gas, because it's cheaper there. Since he was really cool he took us to the capital. He drove extra 30 km just for us.

In Luxembourg we did some sightseeing. It's such a beautiful city. Unfortunately we spent there only about 3 hours, because we had to get to Paris by that evening. We explored the Old Town, ate in McDonald's, bought some postcards and magnets. Then we walked. And walked. Main places we saw were Palais Grand-Ducal, Place d'Armes, Pont Adolphe, Petrusse Valley, Cathédrale Notre-Dame, Banque de Luxembourg, Place de la Constitution, Hôtel de Ville. Finally we asked from a bus driver if he could show us the way to the highway. The bus driver told us to stay on the bus and we didn't even have to buy a ticket. We got of at the final stop. We started to hitch-hike again. After 10 - 20 minutes a car stopped. A woman with a child picked us up and she took us to a nearby gas station. She took us to her car, because she thought that noone else would've stopped there. We were really grateful. People in Luxembourg were all very nice.
From this gas station we got on a car really quickly. Two French guys were in this car. I thought that this car is going to fall apart after some kilometres. Those guys didn't speak any English, so I had to speak French. I wasn't very good at it in the beginning. I hadn't spoken French for some years. I was quite worried during the time we spent with those young men. I try to avoid being in a car when the driver is drunk. But they were smoking weed instead. Otherwise it was ok, but I didn't like the weed part. At all. So, as soon as possible, I told them to drop us at the next gas station. From there, a French woman picked us up. She was quite young also. She worked for some institution that works with children. She took us forward about 40 km to another gas station.
We saw some French hitch-hikers at the gas station. One girl and one guy. They were going either to Lyon or Paris. They didn't care. It was very strange that they told us something like "don't try to get on a car before we do". We started to walk towards the highway and immediately a car pulled over. There were 3 girls: 2 French and a German heading to Normandie or Bretagne. They were really funny. And they spoke English! The German girl was a bit weird, though. But we had fun. They were playing a sort of a game with some French guys. They drove past each other all the time and made faces etc. One time two of three guys (someone had to keep the car on the road) literally showed us their asses. It was hilarious:D Then the guys put their phone number on their back window. One of the girls called him and they were talking for a while about who's in the car and so. She said that they had 2 hitch-hikers going to Paris. It turned out that the guys are going to Paris also, so we switched cars. Simple comme bonjour. These guys didn't speak English, of course. So I spoke a lot of French and translated to Lynn. They made jokes all the time. It was a quite pleasant drive. They took us basically to centre.

We went on a metro from there. We arrived to Paris quite early. Maybe even 5 pm or something like that. I remember the sun was shining. We were supposed to meet my former classmate, Juna, who has been living in Paris for almost 3 years now. She studies at Sorbonne and works at a theatre called Le Méry. We went to the Place de Clichy where the theatre is situated. I saw my classmate after a long time. She's cool. She gave us the keys and we went looking for the appartment. It was close to Place de Clichy and also to Moulin Rouge. The appartment was small, but cozy. It had a great view over Paris since it was on the 9th floor. When I looked out of the window, I could see the Eiffel tower. We took a shower, changed our clothes and went wandering around Paris. I wanted to go to the main places where I went 3 years ago with another friend of mine, Mariel, when we stayed in Paris for 10 days and worked in Marseille, as volunteers for 3 weeks. So we started to walk to the centre. On our way to the centre there was one guy who said he can walk with us. We went to Place de la Fontaine, to the banks of the river Seine and to one bridge. The guy came with us. Then, since we figured it had been another long day, we decided to go home. So, we said bye to the guy and he was like "what do you mean you're going home?". Huh? It turned out he was looking for "fun night out with the girls". We refused. He got really mad. I mean he was furious. Wtf? I basically told him to fuck off. This was the most unpleasant experience of our entire trip. We didn't really care, but it was still unpleasant. We started to go home, got lost, found our way home and went to sleep.

Saturday, 26.08.2006

Paris We woke up and went washing our clothes to a local laundry room just across the street. Neither of us had never been to a place like this before. My friend Juna came there with us. After that we went to Montmartre and to Sacré-Coeur. We walked around Montmartre and had lunch in a small French café. It was nice. We also checked out some souvenir and art shops.
Then we went walking on the street Moulin Rouge is situated. And then we went to visit Juna in Le Méry theatre. We asked her some advice on where to go out. We wanted her to join us, but she had to work.
We went to a minimarket and bought some wine. I think I bought some beer also. I probably did. Damn that wine was good. Juna told us to go to a Irish place called O'Sullivans. She said that it's right next to Moulin Rouge.

When we got home, we ate something and started drinking. I don't know how it was possible, but we got drunk really fast. We started to go to the party. It was quite difficult to get downstairs from the 9th floor. We were seriously wasted, we started to argue and talk about things that disturbed us. We got so carried away that we didn't even notice that we were in a completely wrong place. So we went back and found O'Sullivans. We had passed it before:D The party costed 10 EUR, I think. A "free" drink included. We drank some more and talked about stuff. And then they played Nirvana, which meant that we had to dance. So we danced. I danced also with a cute French guy. Then there was this older French guy, who tried to tell me something all the time, but I couldn't understand. Then he yelled that he liked my blouse. That's all he wanted to say:D So we had a couple of drinks more (read: I had a couple of drinks more) and went home. It was a lot more difficult to get to the 9th floor then it was to come down from there. But thanks to the wine we had a good night sleep.

Sunday, 27.08.2006
Paris

This was a long day also, even though we weren't hith-hiking. This was the ultimate Paris walking tour. We started from Place de Clichy. Then we went to Place de la République. There was some kind of a rollerskating event. A lot of rollerskaters. Since I had some good memories from Place de la Bastille, we went there also. From there the obligatory Hôtel de Ville, Île de la Cité with Notre-Dame, Conciergerie, Les Halles, la Fontaine des Innocents, Le musée du Louvre, le Jardin des Tuileries, Place de la Concorde.

From there we walked to Arc de Triomphe along the world-famous boulevard Champs-Elysées. It was quite a walk. If you would see the map of Paris right now, you'd understand. Of course, there's more. From Arc de Triomphe we went to la Tour Eiffel. We sat on Champ de Mars and just looked at the Eiffel tower. We were there for a while and then started to head back. I wanted to go to Ile Saint-Louis and even though she was tired, Lynn came with me. We walked all the way back to Hôtel de Ville. I adore Ile Saint-Louis. Good memories again. We went there and just sat there for a while. Some nice guys came to talk with us. They were just being nice friendly, not like the Friday night guy. We talked and smoked some Moroccan shit. Which was goood.3 years ago I went to the same place with some guys who were playing guitars and singing Nirvana songs. One of the guys, who we called Teddy bear, was still playing guitar on the same spot. It was really cool to see him again. I'm sorry I didn't speak with him. After sitting on the island,we went back home to pack our bags and prepare ourselves for the next day.

Monday, 28.08.2006
Paris, F - Amsterdam, NL (530 km)

We woke up early. I gave Juna's friend her appartment keys and we took off. We got on a train to Orry-la-Ville, which costed 8.40 EUR. We knew that the highway A1 went from there. We were wrong.. So we asked a bus driver how to get on the highway. He explained it to us, but he eventually felt sorry for us, so he took us there for free. To a place called Senlis. From Senlis one guy took us further about 10 km. And from there a truck picked us up. We drove past Lille and Gent, Belgium. From Gent we got on another car. The driver told us he was going to Antwerpen. He didn't speak any English or French, only Flamish and Turkish or something like that. He turned into the city of Antwerpen and we told him to stop, but he wouldn't. He stopped in front of the railway station and told us that hitch-hiking is bad and we should take the train. We were so pissed off. Fucker. We started to ask people how could we get back to the highway. It seemed noone was local there, because noone knew anything. There were two Polish guys who said they could take us to Amsterdam, but they'd leave in 1 or 2 hours. Can't remember. So we figured that we won't waste any time and start finding our way to the highway. We got on a bus and asked the bus driver for directions. There was an older guy on the bus who was very nice and tried to speak to us and help us. Unfortunately we couldn't understand him. We waited for a car quite long. Finally a younger guy picked us up and took us to a place where we would have better luck with hitch-hiking. He was cool. Really shy, but cool that he tried to talk to us. He was a bit surprised that people still travel by hitch-hiking, especially two girls. It seemed to be the main question during the two weeks : "Aren't you afraid to hitch-hike?" "No."
Then a truck picked us up. We were somewhere near Rotterdam (77 km from Amsterdam) when it started to get dark already. We almost freaked, because noone would take us on, because they just didn't see us. At last we saw a truck stopping. And what do you know! Thuse were the same Polish guys we had met in Antwerpen. It was so funny. They were older men. One of them said with a heavy Slavic accent: "We drive, we look.. Girls!". They way he said it was so funny. They were the only Polish drivers who at least tried to speak English. They had some good music in their laptop also. à la Cindy Lauper "Girls Just Wanna Have Fun". Which was already then kind of a anthem for me and also for some of my friends. We got to Amsterdam quite late. They took us to a street called Cornelis Lelylaan. That's where we were supposed to meet my mom's friend, who lives in Amsterdam. Kadri picked us up from a gas station and we drove to her place. It was good to see her and her son after a long time. We took a shower, talked about stuff and got something to eat. I love Dutch cheese. Seriously. We had some cheese, which was over ten years old! It smelled awful, but tasted so good. Then we went to bed.

Tuesday, 29.08.2006
Amsterdam

We woke up and had some breakfast. And went exploring the city. Martin, Kadri's son came with us. Instead of taking the bus, we decided to walk. Of course. It was sunny at first, but then suddenly it started to rain. And then there was the sun again. And then the rain. And it was the same almost whole day long. Martin went somewhere after awhile. We got to the centre and did some shopping on a street called Damrak. We mainly hung around the Central Station and the old town. Of course, we also went to a coffee shop:)

I think it was called Bulldog or something like that. We ate a spacecake. It costed 6 EUR and looked like a regular muffin. We sat there about an hour and since it wasn't working we decided to prevent "the munchies". We went to McDonald's. That's where it all started. We finished our meal and suddenly Lynn started laughing. I was like "what's going on?". She just laughed and said that she can't move her leg. When she finally got up she just couldn't move and stop giggling. Then I started laughing. We were officially high. Everything was funny. When we got to the street, it was really weird. It seemed that everyone was staring at us. They probably weren't, because they should be used to stoned tourists there. We went to see the Red light district. It was quite early, so there wasn't much going on. A lot of tourists. We sat on a bench near a canal and just talked and laughed. Some tourists groups went passed us and I think they were laughing at us, but we didn't care. We stayed on that bench for a while:)

Then we went to a bar nearby the Red light district. We sat outside. There were some British guys also. Then, suddenly around the corner came a guy with a dog and the dog just pooped on the street in front of us. And the guy didn't clean it up. Since we were high and the British were probably also, our main entertainment became watching whether someone would actually step into the poop or not. It was hilarious. Finally, one guy in a suit stepped into the dog poop and we just laughed. Then a woman from the bar cleaned it up. But it was just so funny. When it became darker we went to the Red light district again. It was kind of a unique experience. Most of the prostitutes I had seen so far in big cities had been old and ugly etc. In Amsterdam the girls were really young. There were a lot of tourists. Then we went back home. I was a bit afraid to talk to Kadri, because the spacecake was still working. But we talked and ate and went to sleep.

Wednesday, 30.08.2006
Amsterdam, NL - Kolding, DK (~800 km)

We woke up early, since initially we had a plan to get to Copenhagen, Denmark by that evening. We had breakfast and Kadri's husband took us to the highway.
We got on a car, which driver was really cool. He told us all kind of stories of hitch-hiking. He also couldn't believe that people were still travelling that way. He also has a blues band. They occasionally perform in a place called Bluescafe, which is in Apeldoorn, NL (http://www.bluescafe.nl). He took us quite far, near Hannover, D. From there, a young guy picked us up. He was funny. He was going to Kiel, D, which was on our way. He was taking her girlfriend some furniture. We spoke to him a lot. In Kiel we made a short stop. He took the furniture to his girlfriend's place and then we went up north. It turned out that he lives in Flensburg, which is exactly on the border of Germany and Denmark. Until Flensburg it was good. From there it was more difficult. We got to somewhere near Kolding with one Swedish guy who was going to north of Denmark. And that was it.

The really bad thing was that we had accomodation planned through HC (http://www.hospitalityclub.org). I had to cancel it. Anyway, we had no other choice but to sleep in a public toilet. We would've slept outside in our sleeping bags, but it was cold and raining. First, we tried to get on trucks, but it was hopeless. There were some guys stopping, but they had no room in their cars. The truck drivers were sleeping.

One guy gave us the finger. Told us to fuck off. Nice! So we took our things to the "ladies room" and washed our hair in the sink:) One older German woman came to the toilet. Lynn was already in the sleeping bag. I had luckily bought some beer near the border. I drank beer. This woman was very kind to us. She would've taken us to Germany, but we needed to go towards Copenhagen. Then a hippie girl came to the toilet. She was surprised to see people sleeping in the toilet. I went outside and saw that she was with her friends with a hippie VW van. I think they were probably heading towards Christiania, the famous Freetown of Denmark (http://www.christiania.org). I would like to go to that place too. Then there were some other people passing through our toilet:) I first thought that I won't sleep and keep an eye on our stuff, but I still fell asleep. I was too tired.

Thursday, 31.08.2006
Kolding, DK - Malmö, S (~230 km)

This day seemed the most hopeless day in its beginning. We woke up somewhere between 6 and 7 am, because a cleaning lady came in and started to scream at us. "This is not a hotel, this is a toilet". NO shit! She basically kicked us out of the toilet:D Like we really wanted to spend more time there. Then we had a small adventure along the highway. Noone would pick us up. Denmark is officially the worst place to hitch-hike. Then Lynn spotted a car by the highway. We weren't quite sure whether he had stopped there for us. There was something wrong with his car. But we were desperate. Lynn told him that we were in trouble. His was from Iraq, but had been living in Denmark for some years. He was really kind to us. He helped us a lot. We went to a small town to find out the timetables and prices of ships and trains to get to Stockholm. The prices were really high. So he said he'd take us to Odense. He bought us some breakfast. We told him we had spent the night in a toilet, so he figured we probably hadn't eaten anything.. Instead of just taking us to Odense, he took us around 60 km further, since he had nothing to do:) It was a nice experience. From there, also a really nice guy picked us up. I fell asleep instantly. Lynn talked to him a lot. He was going to Malmö, Sweden. His whole car was full of Pepsis. Lynn asked him about it and he said that his wife had a baby some 6 months ago and since then he hadn't had any sleep. So, he drank Pepsi to keep him awake. Lynn tried to comfort him that he'd get some sleep soon, because the screaming at night period would soon be over. But he told us that it wouldn't be over, because his wife was pregnant again:D He was cool. Again a person who had hitch-hiked in his youth. He also told his wife that he has some hitch-hikers from Estonia in his car. He had to take some things from Copenhagen's airport. We were chilling outside on the grass and drinking Pepsi:D It turned out that he wasn't going to Malmö after all, because there had been some mix-up. He showed us the way to the train to Malmö. It's only ~20 km from Copenhagen to Malmö. We went on the train. We were in Malmö by 2 pm. We bought something to eat at the train station. Since we knew it was pointless to hitch-hike in the Scandinavian countries, we decided to go to Stockholm by bus (it's over 600 km from Malmö to Stockholm). The thing was we had 8 hours to hang around Malmö. It is a cool town, but 8 hours! We mainly hung around in a café. Surfing in the Internet, having a latte and some beers. Lynn had a cider. Malmö's old town was small, but I liked it. The main sights that I can remember were Stortorget, the City Hall, St. Petri Kyrka, Lilla Torg, Gamla Väster. Our bus left at 22.05. Bus ticket to Stockholm was 435 SEK (~47 EUR). We were very tired. I talked to an American guy, who lives in London on the bus. He was pretty interesting. We couldn't sleep very well.

Friday, 1.09.2006
Stockholm, S - Kapellskär, S

We arrived to Stockholm really early. Lynn's friend who lives there came to meet us. It was 6 am. We went to his office, which was in the centre and took a shower. Then we went to eat some breakfast in Robert's Coffee. We went to some shops and walked around town. I went to my favourite skateshop in Europe and bought me some Marc Jacobs Vans shoes. I had been waiting for this purchase the whole trip long:) Mainly in the shopping area, but also in Gamla Stan, the Old Town. It wasn't that interesting for us in Stockholm, since we both had been there more than a couple of times.
Our ship from Kapellskär, S to Paldiski, EE went at 8 pm. Lynn's friend was kind enough to do some research on the buses going to Kapellskär. When we were waiting for the bus, we met two Estonians. They came from Norway. They were also hitch-hiking. They had stayed in the north for 3 weeks or so. Since they didn't have a cabin on the ship and we had 4 beds, they stayed in our cabin. We had dinner on the ship and some drinks with our new friends. Can't remember their names, though. And then we went to sleep.

Saturday, 2.09.2006
Paldiski, EE - Tallinn, EE

We woke up and got off the ship. My dad came to pick us up. It was one of the easiest hitch-hikings we did:D
When I got home, I got some sleep. And in the evening I went to the MTV launch party in Club Hollywood and then to a bar called Levist Väljas. It was good to be back home.


Conclusion

I love hitch-hiking! I'm going to hitch-hike again in summer 2007. This time probably to Czech Republic, Austria, Italy, France, Spain. We met so many different people and had some crazy adventures. It was great! Even the times it was quite tough. The main thing I liked it was probably the meeting new people part. You just don't get the feeling when flying with airplanes. Plus the occasional adrenalin rush. And the spontaneity. Damn. I already want to go to another hitch-hiking trip.

Some advice. Never go hitch-hiking in Scandinavia. People just don't like hitch-hikers there. Or maybe we just weren't lucky.

The Great Adventures of Helen & Lynn. Vol. 1.

The Adventure begins.
















LONDON, 20-26.06.2006

In the beginning of June we decided to take a trip to London, UK. We bought plane tickets for 5000 EEK (Estonian Kroon), which is about 160 € per face (including airport taxes). Thanks to a very popular website www.orkut.com we found ourselves accomodation. There are some communities in orkut for Estonians who live in foreign countries. Lynn decided to contact some Estonian girls, who live in London and we paid them just for water and gas. Altogether we paid them 1000 EEK (60 €) for 6 nights. The cheapest hostel I could find in London was 2500 EEK (160 €) per person for 6 nights. So we were quite lucky.


Day number one

At 8 am our trip started from Tallinn Ülemiste Airport. Our flight was Tallinn - Prague - London with Czech Airlines. One of our friends, Henri, joined our flight to Prague. He went to Luxembourg from there.
When we arrived to London it took awhile before we understood what was going on. Heathrow Airport is a relatively big place, so we got lost a couple of times:) Finally we went by tube from Terminal 2 to London, to Piccadilly Circus. It costed about £5 (~115 EEK) and lasted for 25 minutes. We also bought an Oyster Card, which is very useful if you're planning to stay in London for some time. I can't remember exactly right now how much it costed. I have to find my card and get back at you on that one. We walked with our big suitcases from Piccadilly to Tottenham Court Road bus station, cause Oxford Street bus traffic was shut down due to some repair works. Just our luck! After an exhausting walk we took a bus to Bethnal Green, the area where we were suppose to live. Luckily, we found the right house quite fast.
The appartment had 4 rooms and during our stay, there were 3 Estonian girls and 1 Italian guy living there. We immediately conquered the living room on the first floor, took a shower and ate something.

After awhile we went to explore the city. In the evening of course, which for me is the best time to discover London. We walked around mainly in Soho. Just when we thought that we'll go home to get some sleep, one guy gave us couple of flyers to a party called PANIC! @ the roxy. I first thought that it was a new version of a 70's punk club called the Roxy. Maybe it was. I'm not sure. The entry was FREE before 10.30 / £3 with the flyer / £5 without. The PANIC! party takes place every Tuesday. I thought that we should go. First night and everything. Plus there are nightbuses. Plus we are party animals;) So we went. Although Lynn was very tired. The party was awesome! A lot of good music. It was an indie, electro and punk party. Couple of drinks and we weren't so tired anymore. Although if I remember correctly Lynn fell asleep after some time...
At about 2 am we were back home, ate some noodles and went to sleep.

We were in London during FIFA World Cup. Madhouse.

Day number two

We slept for a long time. This was our first shopping day:) And where else should two poor students shop if not in Camden. We went to Camden Market.

If we saw all those clothes, we .. at least I thought I'll buy everything. Almost everything. There are so many clothes, shoes, accessories etc. And for all tastes. I finally got my leopard Draven slip-ons and some clothes from there. And Lynn got a load of clothes + her new favourite dwarf shoes:D

We hung around in Camden all day.

By the time we arrived home, everyone was gone. Soon Kristiina came home and we managed to drag her out. She took us to Spread Eagle bar/pub/club. I don't know if it costed something or not. Even if it did, we didn't pay anything. The party was again great. We had so much fun. Especially when they played the Clash;)

And then we went back home, I drank some beer, we ate some noodles and went to bed.


Day number three

I don't remember what we did on day three. I think it was the day when we went to shop on Oxford Street:) I know it sounds like we didn't do anything else but shopping, but it's not quite true. This time it was more like window shopping. We walked around Soho, went to Carnaby Street and to Trafalgar Square. Lynn wanted to taste Burger King's burger. On our way back home we saw a Burger King and had our lunch in Leicester Square. She threw away the burger, because she thought it was disgusting. I agreed. Next time she went for McDonald's:)

In the evening we again went to a party. This time in the basement of a club called 333. This time it was a serious underground party. On stage there were bands like The Violets, These New Puritans, The Boys of Brazil & Wretched Replica. I liked it. So did Lynn. A lot of Mods there. Different from the other parties we went to in London.
Then again, we went home, ate noodles and went to sleep.

Day number four

This was our sightseeing day, so we got up quite early. I think.
Our walking tour started from Piccadilly Circus. From there we went to Trafalgar Square. Unfortunately Nelson's Column was under construction. We took a long walk through St. James's Park and went to Buckingham Palace, where we saw an exhibition dedicated to the Queen's Mother. After seeing this exhibition we went to the Houses of Parliament. We were hoping to get on the London Eye, but the queues were too long. So we thought f*ck it.

And walked a bit more until we spotted some skateboarders. It was really hot out and we were quite tired, so we sat down, took some pictures and watched the skaters doing their thing.

After an hour or so, we walked to the Tower of London. It was a long walk. We were so exhausted when we finally got there.
Then we wanted to get the bus back home, but we accidentally got on the wrong bus and ended up in some jewish ghetto. It was really scary. But funny at the same time:)
When we finally got home we were really really tired. We probably got some drinks on the way and drank them at home. The Italian guy cooked his famous pasta for us. I'm quite sure we went to some pub later on. To the Old Blue Last most likely. And then we walked around Soho, to Leicester Square and to Covent Garden. We wanted to go to a place called Rock Garden, but when we saw the prices....we didn't. So we walked back to Tottenham Court Road, went on a bus, bought some beer and stayed at home. I remembered!


Day number five

Our feet hurt really bad from all the walking we had done on day four. We woke up quite late. Around noon. Lynn wanted to go shopping again. She had some stuff she wanted to buy for herself and people back in Estonia. We went back to Camden and to Oxford Street. She bought what she needed, we got some pizza and went home.

In the evening we went back to Camden to a club called Purple Turtle. There was a party. Of course. The party is known as Buttoned Down Disco. I found information about it in Google:) The playlist consists mainly of eclectic pop, indie, punk, electro, funk and disco. They organize parties quite often and in different places in London. And you get into those parties only if you have the invitation. Which basically means that you go to their website www.buttoneddowndisco.com/invite and write down your e-mail. They will send you information about next party or parties. It's easy. The party was awesome. We went there early. So there weren't a lot of people. When we left the place was full. So many different people (some of them a bit weird, but aren't we all) and music styles. Really cool party!
After the party we went home, ate some noodles and went to sleep.

How many packs of noodles did we bring?


Day number six

I don't remember much about day number six. We probably got up, ate some noodles and packed our stuff in our enormous bags. We had so much stuff. Fortunately we got rid of most of the food we took with us from Estonia.
In the evening we had a small adventure in Bethnal Green. We wanted to go to Brick Lane Beach. Our Estonian flatmates recommended the place. We walked around Brick Lane for about an hour or more and we just couldn't find the place. Then I called to one of the girls and asked her for directions, but we still couldn't find it. After an hour or two we finally saw the place. Great idea to create a beach in a place like this (parking lot). We sat there, drank some alcoholic drinks, talked to some guys. There were five or more guys playing drums under a purple neon sign that said Execution. That was pretty funny:)

A lot of stoned people there also. And a Vespa shop. I took many pictures of that shop..

Since we were tired we stayed there for only an hour or so. Afterwards I bought some beer and we went home. No noodles this time. Just sleeping.


Day number seven

We got up, ate something, said goodbye to the girls, took our bags and went to the bus. From Piccadilly Circus to the airport. Our flight took off at 14.40. Again it was London - Prague - Tallinn. In Prague we met our friend Henri again and went together on the flight to Tallinn.


Home sweet home

We got home and probably went to sleep. Or not. I guess I went home, took a shower, changed my clothes and went to party:D Maybe had some noodles. I'm not sure what Lynn did. She claims we got together later in the evening. Maybe.

We have some sweet memories from that trip filled with walking, sightseeing, laughter, alcohol, parties and noodles.

When we got back home we didn't know just yet that even a bigger adventure was ahead of us in the end of August. Stay tuned for the Great Adventures of Helen & Lynn, Vol. 2.!